Thursday, September 5, 2013

Primeworks, supplier of tools for SQL Server Compact, is closing, making all products free, open source

João Paulo Figueira, owner of Primeworks, http://primeworks-mobile.com/, just announced that the company is closing. In a blog posting João announced yesterday: “The business volume has decreased so steeply that it can no longer support the product development and support.”

Primeworks offers complete set of excellent tools for working with all versions of SQL Server Compact database files, both on the desktop and directly on a Windows Mobile/CE device.

Luckily, the tools will continue to be available for download, and eventually even become open source. João states: “In the very near future, all products will be removed from our online business platform and the licensing requirements removed from the distribution installers. All products will be essentially free (copyrights retained). Next, I will devote some time to publish all the source code and convert these products into open source projects.”

I am sorry to see Primeworks leave the market, but very happy that the excellent tools will now become available for free.

Hi Erik. Thanks for your reply. I'm looking for a tool that will convert old SQL Server CE 2.0 databases (created by a legacy HHC data gathering application) to MS Access format in order to run queries and reports on the data on Windows desktop.

Rob: My tools only work on the desktop, and you can only access SQL CE 1.0/2.0 files from a device. I support SQLCE 3.0 and higher. You can upgrade a SQL CE 2.0 database on the device, and then move the SQLCE 3.0 (SQL Compact 2005) file to your desktop: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb286906.aspx - from there, you can script the file and port it to SQL Server.

Hi Erik. Thanks for your suggestions. Unfortunately, the database has to come down from the handsets as CE v2.0 as that's what our primary desktop application (developed by a 3rd party and very much a 'black box' to us) requires. The CE to MDB solution is a stopgap measure to give us an ad-hoc reporting capability through ODBC before our primary desktop application is replaced later this year. I've also been told that there will be no further development on the HHC side of things before the implementation of the new system, so we can't bring back two versions of the CE database (v2 and v4). The Primeworks software looks to be the ideal short-term solution for us - if only I could get my hands on it.

Unfortunately, if the application does convert the database to a later version, it does so in memory as the processing leaves the database in its original state. The application is a batch billing program - there's no facility to browse the database in any way. No way to export the data. I'm looking at SDF Viewer at the moment which would let us export individual tables in XML and pick them up in Access - proving to be extremely clumsy and clunky though. I probably need to find something else.

Rob: Just to be clear: When I said "upgrade on the device" that means "you can use the SDK tools to create a copy of the database in 3.0 format on the device" - and that database copy can then be moved to the desktop for conversion to SQL script.